Cupcakes
by Surreptitious Chi X
Summary: Post SotS short story period. Heliogabalus. Slash/fluff. In the war of personalities between our beloved antiheroes, cupcakes become the casualties.


**Author's Note:** Set during the post-SotS short story period in Heliogabalus. Response to a request from bigmachine on FRkinkmeme on lj.

**Author Warning:** This assumes facts not in evidence: a sexy, fluffy, friendship with benefits. You have been warned.

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Cupcakes

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Artemis eyed the box with suspicion. Anything that was long, pink, and wrapped with a bow was almost certainly dangerous. He looked up at the drow with the foreboding of one who always knows when disaster is coming and pointed. "What...is this?"

Jarlaxle beamed. "A present from our favorite baker!"

"Your. Your favorite baker."

Jarlaxle scoffed. "Oh, well, you know that in your heart you truly adore his delicious desserts."

"Do not," Artemis said. "I don't have a taste for sugar. It's you and your dark, candy-deprived childhood."

"I don't know how anyone can deny the universal appeal of sweets with a straight face," Jarlaxle said, pulling off the ribbon. He pulled the pink satin strip taut in his hands and looked at Artemis. "How delightful."

Artemis raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Before he could move, Jarlaxle tied a pink bow around a lock of his hair and leaned back, laughing.

Artemis yanked the bow out and tossed it on the floor, scowling. "Do you wish to be dead before you can taste whatever horrid confections are in the box?"

Jarlaxle shook his head.

"Then never try that again."

Jarlaxle laughed. "It made you look cute."

Artemis spluttered and grabbed the bow off the floor, deciding that mere rejection was too good for the villainous thing that enticed Jarlaxle to call him 'cute'.

Jarlaxle lifted the lid of the box and smiled at the assassin. "Oh. Cupcakes."

Artemis threw the ribbon onto his bed, vowing to burn it later. "As if you didn't know," he said sarcastically.

He looked over and was instantly arrested by the sight of Jarlaxle licking a stripe of frosting off the top of the cupcake in the drow's hand, bisecting the enormous, styled mound of peach pink.

Jarlaxle fixed him with an innocent stare and licked again, an all-encompassing, cat-like gesture. The mercenary found he left some behind at the end and lapped it up.

Artemis felt hot and prickly all over. He could only assume he was unspeakably ill at the stomach-turning sight he beheld. Suddenly hot, he loosened his cloak and threw it on the bed, trying to breathe easier.

Jarlaxle, nose to cupcake, teased off the rest of the pink frosting that enrobed the dark chocolate cake.

Artemis choked. "What are you doing?"

Jarlaxle peeled the paper backing of the cupcake down with his teeth, a flash of white against ebony skin. "The frosting is the best part." He winked. "So of course I eat that first. I am never one to wait for my pleasures."

Artemis snorted, trying to gather his wits. "You are going to get crumbs everywhere."

"Mmn." Jarlaxle, taking his first bite, looked as if he couldn't have cared less about the prospect of crumbs.

"Crumbs will bring rats," Artemis said.

Jarlaxle paused doubtfully.

"Rats bring disease," Artemis said.

Jarlaxle frowned.

"Diseases -"

"Be quiet." Jarlaxle shielded his cupcake with a hand and glared at the assassin. "Your unrealistic visions of doom are terrifying them. Stop filling their innocent ears with your cynicism."

Artemis gave him a flat stare. "Shall I apologize to the cupcakes?"

Jarlaxle sniffed. "Please do."

Artemis crossed the distance between them with one long stride and slapped the cupcake from Jarlaxle's hand.

"What did you -"

Artemis grabbed Jarlaxle's hand, pulled the drow forward, and kissed him. The assassin pulled back, deadpan. "Now, hopefully, you will see that I am more important than a cupcake."

Jarlaxle pointed. "Yes, but how about many cupcakes? I have a whole box of them."

Artemis started for the box.

Jarlaxle chased after him, only a second behind, grabbing for Artemis' hair and missing. "Artemis, don't!"

Artemis grabbed the box, smirking, and leveled a cupcake into Jarlaxle's face as Jarlaxle dove to fight him for possession of the goods.

"You - you miserable -" Jarlaxle spoke through cake, muffled, and had to swallow to continue. "I'll get you for this!"

Artemis jumped back, throwing a cupcake with extreme force. It splattered against Jarlaxle's chest, frosting first, and stuck for a moment before it fell to the floor.

Jarlaxle smirked dangerously.

Their apartment became the site of a rip-roaring war. Laughing and curses filled the air, along with flying cakes. Both of them ended up covered in frosting, and one of them accidentally ground a cupcake under their heel into the carpet.

Jarlaxle brought an end to the war when Entreri ran out of ammunition and tackled the assassin to the floor. Artemis found the drow an insurmountable wrestling opponent. He was dismayed, but apparently his body thought that the food fight and his current predicament was all part of the same fun.

Jarlaxle leaned forward and licked frosting out of his goatee. He gave the assassin a half-lidded look and smiled. "As I said. The frosting is the best part."


End file.
